Page 7 of Ice Dance

Banned?! He threw his drink over me! “You started it!” Real mature.

I lunged again.

“Easy.” Casey’s voice was at my ear. “Don’t do this, Cam.” He grabbed me, and yanked me around, steering me toward the circle of shocked faces at his table.

“He fuckin’ started it,” I told him, desperate to find someone who’d listen. “Did you see that? He threw his drink over me.”

“Yeah, well, you did call him a dick, so . . .”

I glanced over my shoulder. Hasegawa had already vanished, leaving his empty glass on the bar and a shocked silence behind him. Good. He could run away with his tail between his legs, and hopefully, that would be the first and last time we’d ever meet.

What a dick.

I groaned awake, and tried to ignore the ache behind my eyes. Too many beers. Casey’s fault. After the whole Hasegawa incident, we’d ditched that hotel bar for a few others in the neighborhood. I’d crawled back into my hotel bed at three a.m. Drunk during selection week. Stupid? Yes. And the part where I’d wrestled Hasegawa to the floor? A bad dream. Hopefully. Nobody needed to mention it ever again.

My phone rang, chirping somewhere on the bed. I groped around the covers for it, hooked it into my fingers, and stared at it. Unknown number. Five a.m. Who was calling me at five a.m.? It had to be important, or a wrong number.

“Hey?” I croaked.

“Is this Camden Navarro?”

English voice, female. Red flags went up. Hasegawa had called the police. Which, if I’d thought about it, didn’t make any sense. He’d thrown his drink over me. I should have been the one calling the cops. But I wasn’t thinking all that clearly with a headache trying to push out my eyes. The UK police weren’t going to be calling me in Montreal at five a.m. Were they? What time was it in England?

I sat up and croaked, “Yeah?”

“This is Dylan Greeves.” She waited a moment, as though I was supposed to know the name. I might have done at nine a.m. But not at five, hungover and still half asleep. “I’m Ren Hasegawa’s coach⁠—”

“About last night,” I blurted, heart lurching into a gallop. “I’m not going to apologize. He needs to keep himself under control.”

“I’m sorry . . . I don’t understand. Did something happen between you and Ren?”

My pounding heart slowed. “You’re not calling about last night?”

“No? But now I’d like to know.”

Why was Ren’s coach calling me, then? How had she gotten my number? And why was she calling me so early? “You know, I think maybe we should start this conversation again. Why are you calling me?”

“I can tell you’re not a morning person, but then, I suppose five a.m. is a little early for unexpected offers.”

I wasn’t following. I pushed my hair out of my face, willed my heart rate to slow and my head to pay attention. Ren’s coach was calling me with an offer? Was this a joke? Had he put her up to this after I’d pulled him to the floor?

“I’ve been aware of your career for a long time,” she was saying, while my thoughts raced to catch up. “You have genuine talent, Mr. Navarro. I’d like to offer you an opportunity to showcase that talent to an international audience.”

My heart raced for a different reason now. “Uh, thank you. I . . . thank you. I’m . . . You’ve caught me off guard, Mrs. Greeves.”

“Just Dylan, please. And I am sorry for the early call, but I do need to get the ball rolling before his flight takes off, so . . . if you’d agree to a meeting between you and Mr. Hasegawa, I do believe we can put something very special together for the Meridian Cup.”

“Meet Hasegawa?”

“Well, yes, I’d like to propose you both partner up for the gender open category.”

I frowned and tried to arrange the words in some order in my head that made sense. “Hold up . . . You think we can dance together?”

“I think there’s potential. Of course, we’d need to meet to discuss it, and his flight leaves at nine, so it’s really something I’d like you both to consider, face to face, as soon as possible.”

I couldn’t really absorb what she was saying. She wanted me to dance with Hasegawa? “Are you sure?”

“The fact is, Mr. Hasegawa is without a partner, and you have the potential to do far more than pose for photographs, I hope you don’t mind me saying. Your talent is remarkable, and I believe that sometimes fate puts two people together at the right time to do extraordinary things.”